Those who have been following the Firefox release tracking tables will not find any surprises, but the list certainly serves as a guide of the baseline of new features and changes Firefox will see by the end of the year, when we will be using Firefox version 17.
Immediate changes for Q1 include add-on sync and add-on compatibility improvements as well as the long-overdue Chrome migration feature, which will allow Chrome users to switch to Firefox and take all their data, including bookmarks, conveniently with them. Mozilla will also update its media control set for HTML5. Q2 will bring the also long overdue Home Tab app, Firefox's new start page, as well as a new New Tab page and Silent Update support, which has been delayed since version 9 and now appears to be scheduled for a final and complete release in version 13, scheduled for a June 5 release.
Mozilla expects to deliver web apps and market place integration by version 13 as well and provide URL auto-complete for Firefox's location bar, faster session restore as well as a memory improvements with a new garbage collector.
For the second half of the year, we are noticing a resurfaced Firefox Share, which was first mentioned for Firefox 5, a built-in PDF viewer, Mozilla's web identity management system and IonMonkey, Mozilla's new JavaScript engine. Noteworthy is also an updated interface, which replaces the current interface with a much more stylish version that makes Firefox much more recognizable than it is today.
